The al Qaeda Franchise Threat

Reports of the terrorist group's imminent defeat are greatly exaggerated.

April 30, 2013 7:00 p.m. ET

Seven weeks after Osama bin Laden's death in 2011, President Obama declared al Qaeda was "on a path to defeat." He has redeployed the phrase often to justify leaving Afghanistan and slashing defense. Al Qaeda, meanwhile, mocks predictions of its imminent defeat.

Even as the U.S. has "decimated" (the President's word) al Qaeda's senior leadership—killing or capturing 13 of the top 20 most wanted terrorists—it pops up in new locales and forms. In recent months, al Qaeda has revived or started terrorist franchises in Iraq and Syria, across northern Africa and in Nigeria. It lost a haven in Afghanistan but set up bases in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. It has nimbly exploited opportunities and is more active and in more places, points out Rand analyst Bruce Hoffman, than on September 11, 2001.

Al Qaeda's tactics have changed by necessity. American special forces and drones drove what's left of the old "core" leadership underground. Administration officials discount the threat from the newer affiliates, saying Somalia's al Shabaab or al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb aren't actively plotting attacks on the U.S.

ENLARGE

Al-Qaeda militants behind bars in Sana'a, Yemen, in March.
EPA

ENLARGE

Perhaps not now, but for how long? The older Yemen affiliate turned into a more imminent threat than bin Laden in Pakistan. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula sent the Christmas 2009 "underwear bomber." Everywhere it is active, al Qaeda seeks a sanctuary to plot the overthrow of pro-Western Muslim governments and attacks on the U.S.

Boston marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev may not have had direct links with al Qaeda's offshoot in Chechnya, the Islamic Emirate in the Caucasus. But investigators are looking into it, including a Russian press report that last year in Dagestan he tried to join and was seen with known militants. Tsarnaev was certainly influenced by Russian-language websites inspired by the movement.

At various times, Bush Administration officials also predicted al Qaeda's demise. "The end of the global threat al Qaeda poses is now as visible as it is foreseeable," Deputy National Security Adviser Juan Zarate told London's Daily Telegraph in May 2008 after the Iraq success. The predictions never held.

The current resurgence has also been assisted by the Arab Spring. Starting in Tunisia, a wave of popular protests brought down secular authoritarian leaders. But instead of political freedom and prosperity, the fruits of the Arab Spring have so far been weak states (Libya, Tunisia, Yemen), prolonged political turmoil (Egypt), civil war (Syria) and empowered Islamists (all of the above). Al Qaeda's extremist message isn't drawing many recruits, but its operatives exploit the absence of state power.

Fred Kagan and Katie Zimmerman of the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project have tracked al Qaeda's franchises. Their map nearby shows a changed, more decentralized movement. They identify five full-fledged affiliates, recognized as such by the al Qaeda core in Pakistan. The most recent is al Shabaab in Somalia, which was certified, so to speak, in February last year when its leader released a video with al Qaeda boss Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Some analysts and Administration officials have claimed that the Afghan Taliban and Boko Haram, which fights for an Islamist Nigeria, don't coordinate with al Qaeda. Lots of intelligence suggests otherwise. The leaders of Boko Haram were in contact with bin Laden in the last 18 months of his life, according to documents found at his Abbottabad compound that the Guardian reported on last year. As far back as 2003, the former al Qaeda leader started to talk about putting down roots in western Africa, says Mr. Hoffman.

Each of the affiliates is different, though all usually have leaders who served or trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Growing out of Algeria's Islamist militancy, al Qaeda in the Maghreb was for years dismissed by Western intelligence as a criminal organization, focused on lucrative smuggling and hostage-taking more than jihad. As a result, notes Mr. Kagan, it is al Qaeda's most financially stable outfit.

Yet with arms spilling from Libya's civil conflict and following a coup in Mali, al Qaeda in the Maghreb last year saw an opportunity to take over Mali. It was on the verge of overrunning the capital, Bamako, before a French military intervention in January. It has been pushed back but not defeated. Recent reports say the fighters have moved north into Algeria and Libya.

The franchises work more closely together than the U.S. likes to admit. Nigeria's Boko Haram militants have trained in Mali. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which grew from a merger of the Saudi and Yemeni branches in 2009, shares fighters and know-how with al Shabaab across the Red Sea. The Somali Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame was the conduit between the groups and pushed al Shabaab to strike Western targets outside Somalia. The U.S. Navy captured him in 2011 and he was indicted in New York on terrorism charges.

The Yemeni branch has tried to open an Egyptian subsidiary. According to a Journal story last October, the Egyptian militant Muhammed Jamal Abu Ahmad last year secured Yemeni financing and asked for al Qaeda recognition. Egypt's new authorities freed him in 2011 as part of an amnesty for political prisoners. He then took part in the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and is believed to be in Libya. Egypt's poorly policed Sinai could be another terror haven in the making.

Perhaps the biggest current prize for al Qaeda is the Levant. After America's complete withdrawal from Iraq in December 2011, many al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) militants defeated in the surge were released from jail and reunited. Without a U.S. military presence, they killed more Iraqi civilians in violent attacks last year than in 2011.

Meanwhile in Syria, Jabhat al Nusra ("Front for the Victory"), one of the armed groups fighting to depose Bashar Assad, is indistinguishable from al Qaeda in Iraq, Administration officials say. Al Nusra's troops are the best-trained and best-armed in the Syrian opposition. As the U.S. sits on the sidelines, the Saudis, Qataris and Turks have financed and armed al Nusra. The Journal reported in April that the CIA has ramped up its support to Baghdad to stop the al Qaeda fighters moving from Syria, but look for more bombings and sectarian strife. Bin Laden always dreamed of a foothold in the Levant.

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These al Qaeda gains are reversible, and not every case will require Western military intervention. Close security relationships, good intelligence and America's peerless special forces are strong weapons.

The U.S. can also do more to help weak governments in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere get a grip on their states. But all of this requires continuing vigilance and a willingness to keep on offense overseas, rather than make premature declarations of victory.

President Obama has preferred disengagement from the Middle East and South Asia to focus on "nation-building at home." One result is Middle East instability and the al Qaeda resurgence. To address these emerging problems, the Administration first needs to acknowledge them. The tide of war, to correct President Obama's other favorite line, isn't receding. It's rising.

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